LANDLORD INTERVIEW – HOW I BOUGHT MY FIRST RENTAL...

One of our lovely (very successful) landlord clients has very kindly

offered to give us some words of wisdom about how they bought

their first buy to let and we wanted to take the opportunity to share

these with our readers.

Buying your first buy to let can be a daunting process and we often

get asked lots of questions about what to look for when buying a

first rental property and we have helped many landlords begin their

journey. However, hearing it from a landlord who has been through

the process and been successful might just help you to make your

decision.

Lets see what they had to say...

What was your biggest concern when buying your first rental

property?

Whether I would be able to find good tenants, but I have been

happily surprised over the years and have had wonderful tenants

who have looked after my properties as if they were their own.

What do you look for when buying a rental property?

I haven’t changed my checklist since buying my first rental as it has

always worked very well. I look for fairly modern properties (30

years or younger), which hopefully won’t need too much upkeep,

always properties with a driveway. I look for properties with good

transport links that make it easy for tenants to commute, I always

buy semi-detached or detached, never terraced, as this leaves scope

to improve the size of the property should I want to do so in the

future.

What is the best piece of advice that you could give a new

landlord?

I would advise them to shop around and find a Letting Agent that

they can trust and work with and also to use a Fully Managed

Service so that you can focus on building your rental portfolio and

your agent can look after the managment of your property and

ensure that you are always up to date with new tenancy law and

legislation.

How do you plan for the future with so many changes affecting

the rental property market?

I always buy properties that not only have a good rental yield but

that I feel are also likely to go up in value and be desirable to

buyers in the future. This ensures that my investment is always

making money, even with changes to the rental market, and should

I decide to sell my properties one day, hopefully they will have

gone up in value.

If you are looking to begin your landlord journey and buy a rental

property please don’t hesitate to contact our award winning team

to find out how RF&O can help.